It Starts With Clients

Week 1 Choose Your Target

A client of mine, a large global bank, decided to conduct a review of their corporate banking relationships. This bank had been in business for over 100 years, and as you can imagine, had accumulated all manner of clients around the world. They discovered they had over 30,000 of them. Many were not profitable, however. Others were with companies that were a lousy fit with the bank's new strategy. Yet another group of these clients had developed marginally acceptable risk profiles. My client had become a hoarder of relationships. The result was a hornet's nest of problems.

Another client I worked with had a different but equally vexing problem with their client base. Over a three-year period, two large companies they served had dramatically increased their demand, and they now accounted for 60% of my client's revenue—a dangerous dependency. In addition, they turned out to be exceedingly difficult clients to work with. They demanded steep price discounts and treated my client poorly. Just as we set out on a strategy to broaden their revenue base, one of the two large clients came on hard times and cancelled half their orders.

My client survived, but it was a tough blow. The incident made them realize that their ideal client was a mid-sized company, not a large public corporation. When they refocused and also broadened their revenue base, their growth ...